
Class __LAiil_ 
Book ^(, ^. 










ISiatxon'B truest &\}xtlh. 



A SE EM ON 






PREACHLD AT 



'^^^2^ 



BLADENSBURG, MARYLAND, | 




ON THANKSGIVING-DAY, 






Thursday, 28 Nov., 1850, 



BY THE 



Reverend WILLIAM PINKNEY, 



ETC. ETC. ETC. 




ubKsfieli i)$ 3£lequest. 



r 

BALTIMORE: 
D. BRUNNER, 4 N. CHARLES STREET. 1^ 

1851. ^ 



"\s 



■A 



3:1)0 Natioirs truest SI)icU. 



A SERMON 



PREACHED AT 



BLADENSBURG, MARYLAND, 



ON THANKSGIVING-DAY, 



Thursday, 28 Nov., 1850, 



BY THE 



Reverend WILLIAM PINKNEY, 



ETC. ETC, ETC. 



3i3ui3lf stJcTJ bs meijuest. 



BALTIMORE". 
D . B R U N N E R , 4 N . CHARLES STREET. 

18.51. 






SERMON, ETC. 



"the shields of the earth belong unto god." 

Psalm xlvii. 9 



Once more, in the order of Divine Providence, permitted to 
leave our quiet and happy homesteads, we have gathered around 
this holy altar, to thank God, I trust with heartfelt gratitude, for 
the civil and religious blessings we enjoy and those other mu- 
nificent gifts which have strewed our pathway since we were last 
assembled to acknowledge His unmerited grace and goodness to 
us as a Nation. It is a high and holy duty that now devolves 
upon us. The review of the past, so full of thrilling and soul- 
stirring incident, is the pleasing and, it is to be hoped, may 
prove to be the profitable employment of the present moment ; 
a survey of the dispensations of God's providence, not for the 
cold and selfish gratification of a heartless pride, but for the stir- 
ring up within us of the flame of gratitude, and the deepening 
and expansion within us of that noble and heaven-born princi- 
ple. Such a retrospect as will make us wiser and better men. 
Gratitude is the offering due — a Nation's gratitude ; and I trust 
that gratitude is the offering presented; — not merely the acknow- 
ledgement with the lips, of the goodness tasted, and the recog- 
nition of the source whence it sprung, but the real, spontaneous 
out-gushing of the finer sympathies and affections of the heart. 
That this feeling may be the more deeply imbedded in the 
national bosom, and that each member of the body politic may 
be the more powerfully wrought upon and excited, we propose 
to recapitulate the list of the blessings we enjoy. There is 
always a rich variety in the experience of the past; a freshness 
and moral charm in the dealings of God, which tend to relieve 
the tedium of the retrospect and impart to it the attractiveness 
of novelty. No two years are precisely alike. There may be, 
as indeed most frequently there is, the same exhibition of abund- 
ance or want, the falling of the refreshing dew-drop or wither- 
ing blight; but still in the attendant circumstances, in the threads. 



of the golden woof, there will be always found those peculiar and 
distinguishing marks, which give novelty to the sameness, and 
relieve it of its dull monotony. 

In our review of the past, we must be careful not merely 
to glance at the wonder-workings of Providence, but to 
study them closely, so that we may detect, in their marvel- 
lous combination, all their secret springs. We must aspire 
to be wise and d-iscriminating observers ; profound students 
of that most beautiful and interesting of all sciences, the 
knowledge of Gou's ways to us, the methods of His all- 
wise providence :, for it is manifest that the real debt of our 
individual and national gratitude can only be ascertained by a 
minute examination of the wonders of Divine Providence as 
exhibited in the every-day dtvelopments of life. Not unfre- 
quently there are amazing mercies wrapped up in comparatively 
seeming insignificant transactions ; circumstances so minute 
as to escape the notice or observation of the great muss of man- 
kind. The pious observer possesses, in /a/7/t, a sort of magni- 
fying ghss which is constantly revealing, in the floating atoms 
above or beneath him, agencies for good, mysteries of love, that 
are actively workinc: out for him invaluable and inestimable bles- 
sings. We must, then, individually so review the past, as to 
call up before our mind's eye, oach important incident, that we 
mav, by meditation upon it, enkindle upon the altar of our hearts 
the flame of unfeigned thankiulness. 

But to begin. We had an abundant harvest. Our granaries 
are well filled. Thrift has followed enterprize, in all the depart- 
ments of iiuman life. We have enough and to spare ; and yet we 
have had extraordinary seasons during the year. At one time, we 
seemed, in this particular section of the country, to swing like 
the pendulum, between abundance and actual distress. The 
stormy winds were let loose from their deep caverns, to sob and 
howl about our path and threaten desolation and ruin, at a lin^e 
when they are usually lulled into repose. Our hopes of the 
promised harvest seemed to be alinost withered in the bud. 
But God inferposotl. He brought judgment near enough to be 
seen and felt by us. He made us quake and tremble at its near 
approach ; and then, almost by miracle, he snatched us from 
the jaws of pinching want and deep distress. The storm-wind 
sported with the work of pur hands, and tore to tatters the del- 
icate leaves of the most important of the growing crops, and 
then left us the picture of desolation. Every where, and '\x\ 
many objects of external nature, you perceived signs of its pre- 
s 'nee, sad proofs of its power. The heart of the most confid- 
ing bpgan to droop, and became desponding. But in our ex- 



treraity, God stepped forth and snatched us from the brink of 
impending disaster. Seasons the most propitious, precisely- 
suited to our existing necessities, followed in the foot-prints of 
the stormy wind and tempest ; as if to restore beauty and bloom 
to the altered face of nature. The more than ordinary conge- 
niality of the climate, the frequent showers, and refreshing rays 
of a tempered sun, brought to the drooping vegetation renewed 
health and fruitfulness ; and the result has been a good and 
ample harvest. Ple?ity is in our midst ; and oh ! there is, m 
that one word a fund of meaning. The pampered and the pros- 
perous can scarce realize the tithe of the blessedness, the word 
imports. Could we go to the barren and inhospitable wilds, 
where penury stalks abroad in tattered garments and with cold, 
cadaverous look, or even to destitute portions of civilized 
Europe, we should find a tongue to express and a heart to con- 
ceive the blessedness of having enough and to spare. Every 
department of business is in a flourishing condition. The boun- 
ties of Providence are lavishly bestowed; and cold must be the 
heart, that does not, in promptest and most cordial response to 
the call of the Executive, leap forth to acknowledge the debt of 
gratitude we owe to the God of Nations. The blight that falls 
upon the earth's vegetation, the judgement that lays waste our 
fertile fields, must wither and consume for the time every other 
branch of human business; for it is the earth's produce, that 
keeps the weaver's shuttle in active motion, fills the flowing can- 
vass on the watery main, and feeds the ten thousand other rivu- 
lets of human enterprise and skill. Without these, the Nation 
could not rise to moral and intellectual grandeur and glory; but 
without this, she could not continue to exist. 

We not only have enough, but we are permitted to enjoy what 
we have. We are singularly preserved from the arm of violence 
and of fraud. Good laws, administered by watchful rulers of 
our own choice, are our protection; the precious guarantees, that 
what we own, we shall continue to posses. The mighty, invis- 
ible, but still real and efl^ective, defence of Law, is a blessing, 
which no American citizen can duly appreciate. He must visit 
countries where this veneration and dread of law are not felt, to 
behold, by the light of contrast, the moral power and beauty of 
the system under which we live. Thus guarded and protected, 
we have every thing to encourage and stimulate us in the pur- 
suit of secular blessings; a rich heritage from the Lord to reward 
our toil, and repay the ardor of our enterprise. 

But not less conspicuous, and far more important, are the 
continuation and preservation of our religious blessings, which 
have already done more to elevate us in the scale of Nations, 



than all else beside. We can worship God, as our own consci- 
ence, enlightened by His Word, dictates, under our own vine 
and fig-tree, with none to make us afraid. The religious toler- 
ance, which for the first time our pious forefathers in Maryland 
wove into the noble banner they unfurled, and infused into the 
government they established, still continues to be the rich heri- 
tage not only of her sons, but of every freeman that treads upon 
our united soil. None here are doomed to the horrors of coer- 
cion, by fire or sword. All are left free to do for themselves in 
matters of faith, in just responsibility to God for all they do amiss. 
Light and knowledge are the moral agencies employed in the 
building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth. Who among 
"us, dearly beloved, can look over the glorious and inestimable 
spiritual privileges we enjoy without feeling in his inmost soul 
the obligation to be grateful? — We have the Cross of Christ, set 
up in the Church He established. The light of the golden 
candlesticks in the midst of the Temple is as yet undimned. 
We have unrestricted access to the means of grace, one and all. 
We are permitted to see the true ark with our own eyes. Not 
only so — we have been allowed to enter it, and ours is the sweet 
satisfaction of knowing that it is the ark the fishermen built 
more than eighteen hundred years ago, which must continue until 
the trump shall sound, and the Church Militant be absorbed and 
swallowed up in the Church Triumphant. Such, dearly beloved, 
is our spiritual inheritance ! 

Oh ! is it not a subject of profound rejoicing, that we are, as 
a State and Nation, precisely what we were, save in those won- 
drously expansive elements of power, which develope a Nation's 
growth so marvellously? We occupy the same high ground; 
we stand upon the same broad platform ; we are encircled by 
the same clustering stars, and wrapped in the folds of the same 
national flag. We are the same hap])y, united confederacy that 
we were when the first thanksgiving song floated over the Ches- 
apeake's blue waves, or was echoed from the shores of the bold 
and beautiful Potomac. We are a more powerful people. Our 
area of empire is widened and extended. The sun of our glory, 
whose rising is on the broad, blue Atlantic, now sinks to his rest 
on the mild Pacific wave. We claim jurisdiction from the one 
to the other ocean. Millions now walk in freedom's high-way, 
where, not a century ago, a handful fought and bled in freedom's 
cause. But still the change is not in quality,but degree. In all 
the developements of power, of national aggrandizement and 
glory, we are changed from what we were; but not in the ele- 
ments themselves. We are changed, as manhood is changed 
from boyhood ; the sturdy oak with its giant branches, from the 



little sapling, that bends and bows itself before the howling tem- 
pest : but no otherwise. Our castle is our Country still, our whole 
country. The stars are multiplied, not diminished, in the milky 
way of freedom. One banner still covers us. It is Washing- 
ton's own ensign. The bird of our destiny is still the same; it 
is the soaring eagle, with expanded wing and eye of flame. And 
shall we not thank Providence that so it is — that Time, with 
other destructive agencies, has not gnawed in two the cable 
which holds us to the rock and keeps us one ? Shall we not 
rejoice, that we can still look North and South, East and West, 
and exultingly exclaim, behold this is our country ? Shall we 
not mingle our mutual congratulations, that one flag still floats 
over us ; that we still inhabit the temple of freedom, which 
Washington loved for its symmetry and the awful grandeur of 
its proportions, and in which it was his heart's desire that the 
torch-light of Liberty once kindled should never go out ? 

This has been an eventfid year. The question of the contin- 
ued, permanent preservation of this Union has been gravely de- 
bated ; and the issues of its rupture seriously weighed by North- 
ern and Southern factionists. Yes, the Union, the holy compact 
which our fathers formed after full and mature deliberation, 
binding together as it does the opposite sections of this proud 
Republic, has been openly and unblushingly assailed. The 
advantages of dis-union have been canvassed. Many have 
approached the dark precipice, and persuaded themselves that 
the yawning gulf presents no hideous and forbidding spectacle; 
words, that in the elder days of the Republic would have fal- 
len in a sort of shuddering whisper upon the ear, and then been 
indignantlyremanded back to the source whence they proceeded, 
have been bandied about as watch-words, by those who are 
looking to the setting sun, and hope to read our destiny, as a 
nation, in that declining luminary. It ill becomes me, or the 
place I occupy, to sit in judgement upon the motives or arraign 
the conduct of either section of disunionists ; but surely, when 
preaching to my countrymen, of our national blessings, and ap- 
pealing to them to send forth their song of thanksgiving for their 
continuance, I may be permitted to point their admiring eye to 
the glorious Union, which is the one great and august embodi- 
ment of the Nation's glory, the source of her richest peace and 
most enduring prosperity, the charm of our national existence, 
and the talisman that has so long warded off" national shipwreck 
and ruin; I may be permitted to express ray surprise, that the 
descendants of '76 should so soon lose sight of the moderation 
and love of country in all its integrity, which was the ruling 
spirit of the Revolution ; or seek to subvert a system of govern- 



8 

■raent never before equalled, and never to be etjualled. Looking 
upon this chef d'ceuvre among the prodigies of their day, the 
patriots of '76 ; and beholding it in the very brightness of its 
youth, before it has attained the zenith of its glory ; I may be 
permitted to say to the North " give up," and to the South, 
"hold not back." Mutual concession was the basis of bur 
present confederacy ; and mutual concession, the very spirit and 
principle of the constitution, must be its continued preservation. 
Whoever touches that broad principle of mutual concession, or 
refuses to stand by the noble compromise of the constitution, is 
a traitor ; be he Northern or Southern factionist. 

There are those who will tell you that the North will be eclips- 
ed by the South, or the South by the North ; that the one adds 
more than the other, to the power, dignity, true glory and gran- 
ite strength of the Union. The stars shine not to eclipse each- 
other, but to blend their brilliant rays. They pour forth, side by 
side, their bright, reflected beams. They are not opposing lumi- 
naries. They love to harmonize ; and it is the mingling of their 
united rays which gives such brilliancy to the whole upper 
sky. So it is with the various portions of this grand confeder- 
acy. Each lends vigor, and grace, and beauty to the other. 
Each gives back a portion of the strength and lustre it receives, 
lama Marylander. I love her, the land of my birth, the home 
of my childish fancies, and the sphere of my manhood's exer- 
tions. I love her with that strong, peculiar love which cleaves 
only to the soil of one's birth — and I know full well that you 
reciprocate the warm attachment. And she is worthy of our 
united affection. For where, in this wide world, but upon her 
soil, were first taught to man those sublime lessons of human 
liberty ? By whom, until it entered into the hearts of our own 
Maryland sires, was the first idea of a model government set 
forth in bright embodiment, for the Avorld's admiration and imi- 
tation ? But we love her none the less, but much the more, as 
one of that great confederacy, which unfurled the united stars 
and stripes, on the borders of her national flag. Jealousy of 
liberty made her cautious, when the foundation-stones were laid, 
of this august Republic. She scanned closely the principles of 
the confederation. But from the moment she entered into the 
family compact, she became an unionist, and has ever since pre- 
served the character of a firm and consistent attachment for the 
Union. She is an unionist still, and I hope she will be the last 
to desert and disown the stars and stripes. It was her own 
illustrious Key that immortalized the banner of Independence, 
and gave to the world a lofty and pure conception of the 
patriot poet in that stirring song, whose tones have thrilled 



9 

the heart, not only of American freemen, but the poor down- 
trodden serfs of petty tynmny, the world over ; and is it too 
great a stretch of the imagination to suppose, that the mother 
will prove herself worthy of the son ? and now that the green 
sward covers his honored grave, and his memory lives in the 
floating stars and stripes, that she will never suffer, so long as 
her patriotic hand rnd counsel can prevent it, the shreds of that 
torn banner to disgrace one of her noble battlements ; or con- 
sent to look out upon a political firmament, no longer lighted up 
by the glittering constellation, overcast with clouds, portending 
storm and tempest ? 

I will not attempt to draw the picture of the scene that would 
follow upon the breaking up and disruption of the Union. I 
have no pen or taste for the odious and distasteful task. I would 
rather expatiate on this bright thanksgiving festival, upon its 
past wonderful achievements for good, and the still more won- 
derful achievements it promises for the future ; the elements of 
power it possesses, together with its wonderfully rapid growth ; 
and for what it has done and it is still capable of doing, I would 
implore you to treasure it. Never suffer its advantages to be 
canvassed in your presence, or its value to be weighed. He 
must be an unsafe and dangerous counsellor, who would rally 
sectional feelings against the harmony of the system ; and call 
up the evil passions and prejudices of the North or South, to 
prey upon the vitals of his country. The United States is our 
blood-bought heritage. It was ours from the beginning. It is 
ours still ; and God has confirmed the gift by deeds of power 
and almost miracles of mercy. There was no North, no South, 
when our patriot forefathers sat in sweet brotherhood, by the 
council-fires of freedom. Every heart was large enough to em- 
brace the whole, and contented with nothing less. 

Some may despair of the Republic. I do not. Troubles may 
be brooding over the face of the mighty deep. The moaning of 
the tempest may begin to fall in sadness on the patriot ear. The 
wild fanaticism of Northern and Southern factionists may threa- 
ten this glorious fabric. But still our trust is, in the patriotism, 
of the masses, and the God of Providence. The fruit of an 
honest, self-sacrificing compromise, it surely will not be left to 
be shrivelled and blasted by sectional bickerings and obstinate 
self-will. A man may break np his own family homestead, dash 
the cup of blessing from the lips of his own unhappy children, 
and thus prove himself a monster to be loathed and shunned of 
all. But oh! who will take hold of the pillars of the very temple 
of freedom, that now offers an asylum and a home to the op- 
pressed of every land, and in the madness of his partisan frenzy 



10 

drag it down in ruin upon his own head, and that of the millions 
who have sought and found in it shelter and protection ? A 
Cataline would be a Brutus compared with such an one. 

He, that has read the past, with the eye of intelligent forecast, 
must know that this Union of States has a mission to fulfil ; a 
mission co-extensive -with the world, and coeval with time. She 
is a sort of world-trustee, not merely charged with the filling up 
the measure of her own individual glory, but the difTusion and 
spreading abroad of her enlightened principles, the world over. 
The spark of freedom, that had well nigh gone out in the tyranny 
and oppression of the old world, was wafted across the ocean to 
this Western wilderness ; and thanks to a kind Providence, it 
found its way without difTicully to our shores, fanned into in- 
creasing brightness by the very breezes that seemed to threaten 
its extinction ; and shall we, the degenerate sons of an illustri- 
ous race, pttt it out, ere half its mission is accomplished? Shall 
we suffer the night of disunion to envelope in horrible darkness, 
the very darkness of despair, this bright inheritance? No, never! 
Love of our common country, forbid it! Hope and harbinger of 
the World's peace and glory, forbid it ! 

Let the North give up ,the unholy endeavour to sap and 
undermine the broad foundation of the mighty fabric. Let 
her cease her unnatural warfare upon the peace and security 
rity of the South. Let her patriot sons extinguish the smoking 
firebrand. Let the North give up, and the South hold not 
back. The patriots of the North have a great and important 
work to do, towards the conservation of the peace and harmony 
of this great Republic. To them the eyes of all true lovers of 
pure republican principles are looking with intense anxiety. 
They must step into the breach, and stay the advancing foot- 
steps of a desolating fanaticism, the miserable and sickly spawn, 
which has usurped a foothold upon Plymouth Rock, and sought 
a retreat behind those granite hills, which look out upon Lex- 
ington and Concord. The Southern members of the confed- 
eracy are willing to stand by the compromise of the constitution. 
They ask for no broader platform than that laid by the sages of 
'76. They only ask to retain their original sovereignty and ju- 
risdiction within the clearly expressed provisions of tlie consti- 
tution ; and what calm and dispassionate friend of those prin- 
ciples, which constitute the basis of our present Union, can tail 
to see that they can only be preserved inviolate by a firm and 
dignified adherence to the original compact. The sovereignty 
of the States, outside the clearly defined limits of the federal 
jurisdiction, is the vital element, the rich golden woof in the 
warp of our system of government. Each State is and, from the 



11 

nature of the case, must be supreme within the sphere of her own 
separate jurisdiction. What is surrendered to the general gov- 
ernment is surrendered equally, by each, for the common benefit 
and security. It would be impossible for any one State or sec- 
tion of States to transfuse its own peculiar and sectional views 
and principles through another, without producing a ruinous 
and destructive jar in the complex machinery. The period of 
territorial dependance, through which each successive State 
must pass, before it can attain the dignity and sublimity of a 
State existence, must be passed under the one national flag, and 
beneath the broad panoply of the one constitution, which knits 
together and unites the whole. The territories are the property 
of the Union, and continue so to be, until they are prepared to 
exercise within the terms of the constitution their own preroga- 
tive of sovereignty; and then the sovereignty must be perfect 
and entire, not shackled by manacles forged either North or 
South. Let the patriots of the North redeem then her plighted 
faith. Breathing the spirit of her noblest Orator and profoundest 
Statesman, — the living impersonation of all that is grand in elo- 
quence, or convincing in argument, or patriotic in purpose, — let 
them rally around the floating stars and frown down the spirit 
of wild fanaticism and reckless aggression, which has even dared 
to desecrate Fanueil Hall, and speak words of almost treason 
within sight of Bunker Hill. There must be a rally of the Union- 
ists of the North, or the whirlwind will get beyond control and 
the sun will set upon the land of Liberty and Law. Let the geni- 
us of the Union be once fully aroused, and then will the Nation's 
heart beat free, at unity with itself. No body believes that the 
cable, which binds us together, can ever be violently broken by 
any mere human power; but still all must know and feel, that it 
may be corroded by bitter sectional feuds, until weaker than a 
rope of sand, it will be snapped asunder; and then we, who are 
now the wonder and admiration of the old world, will become 
the sport of tyranny and the laughingstock of despots ; too weak 
to continue free, and too contemptible to enjoy longer the blessed 
boon. 

Oh then, let the wise and the patriotic of either section make 
an oblation of the wild and unholy prejudices that threaten to 
kindle a civil war which neither the Atlantic or Pacific wave 
could extinguish, upon the altar of their common country ! The 
incendiary's torch, any hand may bear. His work of destruc- 
tion, any traitor may easily accomplish. But ah ! who will 
build up or new-construct the smouldering ruin ? The work oi 
destruction should never be divorced from the power to re-con- 
struct. If there be not patriotism sufficient in the North and ike 



12 

South to Slav the idle and fatal excitement, and hold on to the 
compromise, sanctioned as it is by the constitution, and enbalra- 
ed in the holiest memories of the past— ^aye, in the very blood 
of the revolution — how can we hope for that moderation in 
counsel, and self renouncing patriotism, which the establishment 
of a second Union will demand at our hands. 

Dearly beloved, let us strive to hold fast to the blessings we 
now possess and enjoy. The duty we owe to the cause of suf- 
fering humanity, the world over, demands it; our duty to our- 
selves, our illustrious forefathers, and our precious offspring. 
While we praise God in Jesus Christ our Lord, for the rich 
unmerited boon, let us pray for the gift of a more fraternal feeling, 
a broader patriotism, a more unselfish spirit, and a more compro- 
mising disposition. Let us pray lor grace, to be true to our 
fearful trust. Let us cleave to the Union, water it with our 
tears, and never suffer ourselves to despair of it. Let us pray 
more for the country^ of which we boast that we are the happy 
descendants. Let us do what we c^n to uphold the national 
ensign. Thankful for what is past, we may then trust God for 
what is to come. 

In reviewing the mercies of the past and the present, it would 
be equally unwise and unnatural, were we to suffer the sore judg- 
ments that were mingled in the cup of our national blessings to 
pass by unnoticed. Death has been busy in many households. 
He has cut down without discrimination, the high and low, the 
rich and poor, the humble citizen, the orator and the statesman. 
Our Senate chamber has been hung with a sable pall ; and 
weeping senators have bowed beneath the blow which paralyzed 
the tongue of the eloquent, and hushed the beatings of the 
patriot heart. The Nation's President has fallen in the midst of 
the dazzling honors he bore so meekly. In the mansion of his 
glory was he wrapped in the winding sheet and shroud, and a 
Nation waited upon his funeral. Naught remains of the depart- 
ed hero, but his maxims of wisdom, his spotless integrity and 
burning patriotism. He who would have shielded with his body 
the banner of his country, is now lost to the councils of that 
country forever. Oh, may those who are called to occupy the 
high places of the land, remember the stern and solemn lessons 
of those melancholy bereavements ; and may thos'^ in the hum- 
bler walks of life, catch the lighted torch as it fell from their 
paralyzed grasp, and take it with them into the temple of free- 
dom, and so cherish and guard it, that it may never go out in 
darkness and gloom ! May love of country glow in every heart, 
inspire every tongue, illuminate every deed ! May pure religion 
and unalloyed patriotism constitute, as under Goo alone they 



13 

can, the foundation of our Country's prosperity and "■ pledge 
of her perpetuity and renown." 

It would be not less unwise to pass by, without deep national 
abasement, the sins which have called down upon us those sore 
judgments. We have sinned as a nation, and our sins continue 
to rise up, as a dark cloud, before God. Where is our national 
gratitude ? Where is that righteousness which exalteth a peo- 
ple ? Where are the proofs that we fear and honor God, as a 
country ? We have, alas, almost forgotten the God of our fath- 
ers ; carried away by our imagined invincibility and glory, we 
have well nigh lost sight of the true source of our hitherto un- 
paralleled national prosperity. " The shields of the earth belong 
unto God;" but we have, it is to be feared, lost sight of the 
glorious and ennobling sentiment — and now that our song ol 
thanksgiving is floating along, let us hope that with our grat- 
itude for the past and the present, we shall mingle our repentant 
tears, and resolve to be a more righteous and godly nation foe 
the future, — the Lord being our helper ! 



LbD'ii 



